9of 16Tom James head of Spurs Communications leads DeMar DeRozan to meet with the media as head coach Gregg Popovich passes him by. Spurs Media Day at Spurs practice facility on Monday September 23, 2018.Photo: Ronald Cortes

New Spurs guard DeMar DeRozan all but scoffed last week when asked if he intended to play in the team’s preseason opener against Miami.

Even if he were to fall early victim to the personal peccadilloes of coach Gregg Popovich, who has become infamous for taking it easy on veteran players in September, DeRozan swears he will be playing somewhere Sunday afternoon.

“I love playing basketball,” DeRozan said. “If we were playing outside later on today, count me in.”

DeRozan need not worry. Popovich says he plans to deploy as much of his 19-man roster as possible when the Heat visit the AT&T Center.

That list includes DeRozan, the 29-year-old All-Star obtained in the July trade that sent Kawhi Leonard and veteran Danny Green to Toronto.

“I’m excited,” DeRozan said. “I’m ready to go.”

DeRozan won’t be the only new face to make his Spurs debut Sunday. Far from it.

In all, 11 of the 19 players on this year’s camp roster were not with the team last season.

The includes center Jakob Poeltl, who was also acquired from Toronto; NBA journeymen Quincy Pondexter and Dante Cunningham; and 2018 draft picks Lonnie Walker IV and Chimezie Metu.

Veteran guard Marco Belinelli is back for his second tour of duty with the team after leaving for Sacramento in 2015.

With so many new parts to integrate, point guard Dejounte Murray cautions that the team that rolls into the AT&T Center to face Miami will be far from a finished product.

“It’s going to be a lot of awkward moments,” Murray said, “But like me and DeMar were just talking, it’s going to be fun.”

Popovich, for his part, does not have much idea what to expect from his team at the start of the 22nd preseason with him at the helm.

Gone are franchise mainstays Tony Parker and Manu Ginobili who — along with Leonard and Green — might have lent stability to previous preseason proceedings.

Popovich is unsure who his starting five will be Sunday, or whether the team will play mostly small or mostly big, or how much playing time he will allot each player.

Illustrating the feverish mixing and matching that has been going on in practice, Poeltl — who may or may not wind up the Spurs’ new starting center — says he has been running with the first, second and third teams at various junctures.

The 22-year-old Austrian has been paired in the frontcourt with such disparate power forwards as LaMarcus Aldridge, Rudy Gay and Davis Bertans in different lineup permutations.

“It’s all over the place right now,” said Poeltl, a 2016 lottery pick who came off the bench in all 82 games for Toronto last season. “We are just trying different lineups, different combinations of players.”

Though Popovich declared his intent to give minutes to as many players as possible Sunday, he was less certain about his own availability.

In years past, Popovich has often preferred to turn preseason games over to assistant coaches in favor of evaluating from the stands. He calls himself “a game-time decision” against the Heat.

“Coaching’s not that much fun,” Popovich said. “Watching them, I can evaluate them and be like a fan. That might be more fun.”

Aldridge, the team’s leading scorer last season and its de facto leader after the prominent offseason departures, tabbed “finding chemistry” as the No. 1 goal for the preseason.

“It’s a whole new team,” Aldridge said. “It’s about finding how to play with guys, and see how certain guys play with other guys. Establishing our defensive mindset. Last year, even when our offense kind of sputtered, our defense was always there for us. We’re trying to get that back intact, and getting guys locked in on defense and letting the offense come to us.”

With that task in mind, veteran big man Pau Gasol believes this year’s preseason could take on a different tenor that preseasons past.

Chemistry, Gasol notes, can only be fashioned on the 94-by-50 foot confines of an NBA court.

“We’re not a group that has been playing together for five or 10 years,” said Gasol, entering his third season in San Antonio. “We’ve got to be out there, play together and communicate. We’ve got to get to know each other and how we fit together.”

That could be true both on and off the court. At the start of camp, Gay joked that everybody opened by raising their hands and introducing themselves.

Popovich acknowledged at the beginning of the week he had yet to learn the new players’ names.

“Everybody has shown what they can do (in camp),” Murray said. “Pop is letting us get up and down. He is just figuring dudes out. He’s a great coach. He’s going to put everything in the right place. But everybody is showing something.”

If it feels a little early on the calendar for this sort of thing, it is. This will mark the first time the Spurs will play any sort game in September.

For Spurs players new and old, Sunday represents a sort of “soft open” to introduce the remade roster.

Ready or not, the new-look Spurs are eager to take the floor.

Asked after Saturday’s light practice if his team was looking forward to getting back on the AT&T Center floor, Murray didn’t flinch.